Aetna To Shuffle Employees

Economizing Move May Put Burden On Commuters

Aetna Reorganization To Shuffle Employees

September 27, 1991|By DIANE LEVICK; Courant Staff Writer

Aetna Life & Casualty Co. will transfer thousands of employees among its Connecticut offices over the next year, burdening some with longer commutes and disrupting the child-care arrangements of others.

Although the transfers will ease some employees' lives, others predict the moves will force some workers to quit.

The moves are the result of the biggest reorganization in the company's history, which is well on its way to cutting 2,600 jobs.

The massive transfers are aimed at creating new marketing possibilities and consolidating employees in Aetna-owned buildings to save money, said company spokesman Steve Wasdick.

The total number of transfers may approach the 5,000 that resulted from the 1983-84 move of Aetna's Employee Benefits Division from Hartford to Middletown, the company said. At the time, the division's move was one of the largest in U.S. corporate history.

Aetna now has roughly 17,000 employees in Connecticut.

The transfers -- some coming as early as October -- include some of Aetna's largest business units.

"They've really neglected the humanity, in a sense," said Rajinder M. Singh, a systems development adviser in Aetna's Windsor offices who is being transferred to Middletown. "There wasn't any effort made to consult the people who it [the transfers] affects the most." Company spokesmen say Aetna will do what it can to help employees adjust to the transfers, and that the moves are meant to strengthen the company's competitiveness.

Because some transfers haven't been determined yet, Aetna declined to say how much the transfers will cost in the short-run or how much money will be saved over the long-run through office consolidation.

"Moving this many people is going to take an investment," Wasdick said, "but in the long run, we believe it's going to be more cost-effective and efficient, and we believe it will be a good business move." In some of the largest transfers: The group pension operations -- about 1,200 people -- will transfer from Middletown

to Hartford. Employees will begin moving in November, but the transfer isn't expected to be completed until January.

The national commercial accounts business, which sells property-casualty insurance to very large companies, will move from Hartford to Middletown, possibly in February. At least 400 workers will be transferred.

The individual life insurance operations -- about 500 employees -- will leave the Park Place offices in Hartford that Aetna leases and move to Middletown, possibly in June or July.

The individual annuity business will move from Park Place down the street to Aetna's Farmington Avenue site in Hartford. About 450 employees are affected.

Aetna had been rumored for months to be vacating Park Place, where it occupies 400,000 square feet. It is estimated the move will save Aetna about $10 million a year in leasing costs. In addition, an undisclosed number of Aetna employees in Windsor have been told they will be transferred to Hartford in October. Others in Windsor have been told they're going to Middletown.

In a typical year, Aetna says it transfers thousands of employees within Connecticut. But the upcoming moves differ because they involve whole business segments, the company acknowledged.

Singh said employees in the Windsor unit, which writes computer programs for various Aetna businesses, were given little explanation of the moves. Singh, who already drives an hour and 15 minutes to work from his Amherst, Mass., home, would likely face another half-hour or more of travel to Middletown during rush hours.

He is hoping to work out a way to continue working for Aetna without such a long commute, but he's planning a job search outside the company, too.

"A number of very valuable people are going to end up leaving," Singh said, referring to his section of the company.

Another Windsor employee, who declined to be named for fear of losing her job, said colleagues are worried they won't be able to keep present child-care arrangements or find suitable alternatives.

Aetna has a child-care referral program to help employees, and "we're asking our supervisors to be as flexible as they can to help employees adjust," Wasdick said.

The employee said she had left a company in Hartford several years ago to join Aetna's Windsor offices, but she's being transferred to Hartford. "Now I'm being forced back into a place where I don't feel safe. ... I can't just quit and get another job next week." She said that when she worked in Hartford, she was accosted by two men trying to get into her car as she was driving away.

"We obviously provide what we feel is a secure work environment here," said John Hawkins, a company spokesman. "I don't think it's affected by any unusual or untoward amount of problems." A Hartford employee who lives in the Farmington Valley and is being transferred to Middletown said the 25-mile commute instead of a 10-mile trip will raise his auto insurance and gasoline costs. But he looks forward to more convenient parking.

"I think most of the people are now resigned to it," he said of the move.

Some employees fault the logic behind some of the moves and say the company hasn't adequately explained them.

The transfers will put together operations previously in separate offices so they can explore some marketing opportunities,

Wasdick said. For instance, the national accounts' property-casualty operations being moved to Middletown may work with Aetna Health Plans to approach the same employers with an array of products.

Aetna expects it will lose some employees who don't want to be transferred but doesn't know how many, Wasdick said. "The object of the reorganization and this move is not to see how many employees we could let go." Aetna won't help pay for employees to move their households, as is done in transfers over longer distances. That is because few employees are expected to relocate, Wasdick said.